


Promise

by squireofgeekdom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s01e07 Human For A Day, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squireofgeekdom/pseuds/squireofgeekdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You make a promise to a dying man, and you don’t know what it will mean.</p>
<p>Coda to "Human for a Day." What happened in Peru, and afterward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise

You make a promise to a dying man. 

You make a promise to a dying man, and you don’t know what it will mean. 

(It will mean everything. You don’t know that, not for a long time.)

It’s hard to remember that day. It had been -

_terrifying despairing desperate hateful triumphant failure_

\- overwhelming.

When you tell Alex that her father had asked you to make a promise, you aren’t telling the whole truth.

(You’ve been lying so long, it’s hard to stop. Sometimes you wonder if you know how.)

When you get to Jeremiah Danvers, stepping over the dead body of Hank Henshaw - 

(- you’ve already pulled everything you can from him psychically, enough to do what needs to be done, enough to stop this from happening again _not again not again_ \- pulled it all out from under the seething layers of _alien hate dangerous hate danvers traitor hate hate hate_ -)

\- he’s too far gone to speak, but your head feels like it’s been cracked open with the weight of all you’ve absorbed, it would be impossible not to feel what he felt, to hear his thoughts ringing, louder than a scream -

_daughter daughter daughter_

\- terror is tangled through long blonde ( _black_ ) hair _Kara Zor-El Kara Danvers Kara_ \- and even as Hank Henshaw’s blood sinks into the ground Jeremiah Danvers ( _Alexandra Danvers_ ) is terrified of him, terrified of the DEO, terrified of what they’ll do to Kara ( _Alex_ ) Kara. who’s innocent, Kara, who lost her planet, Kara - 

(you understand now, you understand why Jeremiah Danvers, of all people, understands what you are. you didn’t then. you were overwhelmed then, too overwhelmed to process anything but love and fear, drowning you)

_I won’t let them._ You think, and you watch Jeremiah Danvers’ eyes widen. _I’ll keep her safe. I won’t let them take her._

Relief, relief and now - now there’s the sadness, now there’s the dark hair in full, now there’s the face _Alex Alex Alex Alex_ and a wave of love, love stronger than anything you’ve felt since -

_(you don’t think about that day)_

\- and he’s leaving her, he’s leaving her, and there’s so much he won’t see, there’s so much he won’t be there for, how can he leave her now, when she - 

( _a round, wrinkled face, crying - daughter, daughter, my daughter, our daughter -_

_the first time she saw the planets through a telescope, the first rocket she built -_

_the day she came home with her face flushed and grinning and the trophy from the science fair -_

_blonde hair and black hair tangled, the two of them speaking in Krypton and thinking he couldn’t understand -_

_flying and -_

_the hazy image of black hair under a graduation cap, in a blue gown -_

_in a white gown -_

_in a lab coat and -_

_standing on a stage, applauded by a crowd -_

_pride_

_wrapped up in his arms, safe -_

_love_ )

_Safe_ \- you think, trying to project a feeling you’ve almost forgotten - _I’ll keep her safe. Like she was my own._

Though you hadn’t been able to keep your own safe. You don’t know if you can believe in safety anymore, not after -

You shut down the thought.

_I’ll protect her._ You think. _I’ll protect them both._

Relief - so much it makes your knees shake.

_Thank you._

(You never promised to love them like they were your own children. They left you no choice in that.)

_Eliza, I’m sorry. I -_

And you finally come back. Back to yourself, to leave the man the privacy of his last thoughts. 

_Back, to not have to feel him die._

You close his eyes when he goes. 

(You wonder sometimes - more often than ‘sometimes’, if you’re being honest - if you should have died. You, with nothing to live for, with the weight of Mars to carry, Jeremiah Danvers, with so much to live for - how was that a fair trade?

You wonder this less often now.)

Alex asks you, once, half jokingly, how you decided that the best way to fulfil your promise to her father was to recruit her to a top secret, high risk organization. 

(You don’t know how to explain that you don’t believe in safety anymore)

“You think anyone related to your sister is ever going to be safe?” You tell her, and she smiles, nods. “Best way I could protect you was to make sure you could protect yourself - and make sure you know what’s out there.” You look away, up at the monitors, knees stock straight, then back at her. “If I ever thought you’d be safer on your own than doing your job in here, if I thought for a minute that you couldn’t cut it - you’d have been out faster than you could say Supergirl.” She looks down at the console. “You are the reason that you get to stay.”

“Thank you - sir.” She says, not quite able to keep the smile off of her face.

You find you aren’t either. “Your father would be proud of you, Alex.” You tell her, and she ducks her head, her smile widening. 

(You don’t tell her her father loved her so much it had felt like something tearing at his skull, scoring the feeling in like a scar, burning it like a brand. 

You don’t tell her that when you first started to feel the same, you thought it was that scar.

You don’t tell her that every day you’re more sure it isn’t. You hope she knows.)


End file.
